Reznet

The Power of Failure

By Luella N. Brien

VERMILLION, S.D.—Journalists who want to start their own newspapers should know that it will be a tough road, but according to Mark Trahant, the journey is worth it.

"Anybody can do this if they put in the time and do the work," Trahant, a Native journalist, told college and high school students at the University of South Dakota.

Trahant, chairman of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, spoke Monday to students of the Freedom Forum-sponsored American Indian Journalism Institute as part of the AIJI summer program. High school students from the university's Math and Science Initiative Program also were in attendance, but Trahant directed his message primarily to the aspiring journalists.

A Shoshone-Bannock, Trahant stressed that journalists shouldn't be afraid of their failures. He shared a story about going to San Francisco to cover the 1994 earthquake.

He said he covered the story from many different angles, spending hours moving around the city. But his editor told Trahant that he should have focused on a single place devastated by the earthquake and written the simple story instead of trying to compete with the news wires and their overall coverage.

According to Trahant, that was his biggest failure. But he shared with students the importance of not fearing failure.

"You can't underestimate the power of failure," he said. "That is the one thing I wish for everyone to know."

Trahant said journalists must learn from their mistakes and just keep reporting and writing.

"This is all about storytelling," he said. Storytelling is the key to newspaper writing, he added, and he urged the student journalists to write constantly to improve themselves.

"Writing is a muscle that you exercise everyday," he said.

Trahant told students that he wanted to be a writer since he was a child and once made a newspaper colored with crayons that he called The Sun.

Years later, Trahant worked for tribal newspapers and became a columnist for the Seattle Times. He authored the book, "Pictures of Our Nobler Selves," a history of Native American journalism. Today, he is also a Freedom Forum trustee and writes a column for MSNBC.com twice a month.

"I can't imagine how life would be without journalism," Trahant said.

Luella N. Brien (Crow) is a 2002 graduate of The Freedom Forum's American Indian Journalism Institute at the University of South Dakota. She is a student at the University of Montana. This story was written in two hours, as part of a deadline-writing exercise.